Groups challenge Montanore mining project in the Cabinet Wilderness Area

A coalition of six different groups have filed a lawsuit in federal court over a controversial mining project in the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness area, accusing both the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Forest Service of side-stepping the best available science about threatened species in order to approve Montanore’s mining exploration.

The lawsuit also said a new water law adopted by the Montana Legislature and signed by Gov. Greg Gianforte has made it easier for mining companies to skirt water protection laws because the Treasure State has adopted “narrative” standards instead of water standards tied to specific, measurable numeric results.

The lawsuit was filed by Cabinet Resource Group, Clark Fork Coalition, Earthworks, Montana Environmental Information Center, Save our Cabinets and Yaak Valley Forest Council.

The mining exploration will test whether there are reserves of copper and silver mining in Montana’s northwestern corner. Meanwhile, the coalition says that mining activities will disrupt one of the most important populations of grizzly bears still living in the contiguous 48 states, as well as damage water quality of the threatened bull trout population.

They also said that Montanore Minerals Corporation, a subsidiary of Hecla Mining, has a particularly poor track record of environmental stewardship in other states. The project requires federal government approval because it’s sited within the Kootenai National Forest and the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness area.

This isn’t the first legal battle centered on the mining proposal in that area. In 2017, the federal court in Montana invalidated conclusions by both federal agencies that determined a full-scale mining operation would comply with water standards while not presenting sufficient evidence the project would not harm bull trout and grizzly bears.

Since then, Montanore has segmented the full-scale mining project, estimated to last for at least 16 years, into smaller sections, including the current one at issue, which is an “extensive exploration project,” according to court documents filed by the coalition.

The U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services have a policy of not commenting on pending litigation.

The lawsuit cites a number of disputed areas, including contradictory statements made by the Forest Service that the mining project “may affect” bull trout and grizzly bears, but that it is also “not likely to adversely affect” them. They also said documents submitted by the federal agencies violate federal water laws.

The organizations are asking the court to declare that the two federal agencies made multiple errors in analyzing the project, set aside the decision to allow the initial phase, force the agencies to conduct aquatic and terrestrial biological assessments, an environmental analysis, and reconsider its finding of “no significant impact,” as well as award attorneys’ fees.

“Montanore’s parent company, Hecla Mining Co., has a history of violating environmental laws at its other mining operations. Hecla has routinely violated environmental laws at its Greens Creek mine in Alaska and its Lucky Friday mine in Idaho,” the court documents said.

For example, the coalition points out that Greens Creek mine has been in noncompliance with the Clean Water Act for 12 out of the 12 previous quarters, while the Lucky Friday mine has been out of compliance for 10 of the 12 previous quarters.

“The Forest Service did not evaluate the company’s history of violation when declining to prepare and environmental impact statement — even though the Service’s finding of no significant impact purported to address whether there were effects that would violate environmental laws,” the court filing said.

The lawsuit also said that the Forest Service did not take into consideration the elevated water temperatures and the elevated nitrogen levels that would come from the decision to expand mining there. For example, the daily average summer temperature for the water there was above the 59-degree Fahrenheit threshold for adult bull trout, when studied between 2017 and 2020.

The lawsuit also said the federal agencies failed to take into consideration the effects of a warming climate there, even though it admitted air temperature and water temperature continue to climb.

The lawsuit also claims the water from dewatering the mining area will contain nitrogen levels exceeding federal standards. The federal standard had been set at 275 micrograms per liter of nitrogen, but mining activity could raise that to 3,142 in the area and even 953 micrograms per liter a half-mile downstream in Libby Creek.

“In other words nitrogen concentrations — listed by Montanore in 2023 — at the end of the Libby Creek mixing zone are nearly three-and-a-half times the 275 concentration that the Forest Service assumed in the 2024 aquatic biological assessment,” the lawsuit said.

Grizzly bears

The lawsuit also points out while the mining project would add no new roads to the project, Forest Service officials did not calculate the number of roads that should be vacated, but are still being used. Attorneys for the groups reasoned those are still having an adverse impact on the grizzly bears.

Moreover, they used data from the two agencies to argue that grizzly bear recovery targets still aren’t being met without the disruptive mining project.

“Despite the terrestrial biological analysis numerous inadequacies … FWS concurred with the Forest Service’s ‘not likely to adversely affect’ conclusion,” the lawsuit said. “In its concurrence, FWS offered no further analysis of the effects the project would have on grizzly bears and their important habitat beyond that which was offered in the Forest Service’s.”

The groups pointed out they have been fighting the project’s shifting standards and the different iterations of Hecla Mining, for more than a decade.

“For more than 40 years, Cabinet Resource Group has been the ‘barking dog’ at a string of mining companies changing hats and CEOs, all just bad actors,” said Colleen Hinds, an original member of the Cabinet Resource Group. “They leave a path of faults and degradation to Earth with not so much as a look over their shoulder. Mining is never clean. The Cabinet Mountain Wilderness is definitely out-of-bounds for their trial and errors.”